He is maligned by Moscow and enmeshed in scandal in London, but when Boris Johnson visited Kyiv this month, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky could barely restrain his enthusiasm for the UK prime minister.
With Britain playing a key role in the western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky thanked Johnson for “your leadership, your assistance and the weapons, and for the very clear and specific position of your wonderful and powerful country”.
The contrast with Johnson’s domestic troubles is stark. This month he became Britain’s first serving prime minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law over the so-called partygate scandal. Two years ago, in another scandal, he made his billionaire friend Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a former KGB agent, a member of the House of Lords.